Big 12 leaders nix conference expansion at this time

The Big 12 sent a message to the college football world Wednesday afternoon that the conference is happy with the current 10-team league.

The conference’s spring meetings are being held in Kansas City at the InterContinental Hotel, and Chuck Neinas, the Big 12’s acting commissioner, said during a press conference Wednesday the league is quite content with its current configuration.

"You have to analyze whether you want to go beyond 10 first," Neinas said. "There's more to it than just adding a member. How it impacts the membership in terms of the BCS standings, how it impacts the television arrangement, how it impacts the basketball arrangement, what it does to other sports. I think you have to take an analytical approach to it."

Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard, chairman of the Big 12 AD committee, said that part of the consideration is the fact that the league won't make a move just to have a conference championship game.

“We have come to really appreciate the position we are in right now by not having a championship game,” Pollard said. “Depending on how the BCS turns out, our champion can get a route to the national championship with one less game. It’s a really good position to be in at this point. The first time someone's best team gets knocked out of the four-team playoff because they lose to a 7-5 team, we’ll see how long they want to keep a conference championship game."

However, the SEC made the same kind of announcement a year – just before adding Texas A&M and Missouri – and Pollard admitted that the conference will leave all of its options open.

”I would say the position we're in is very proactive," Pollard said. "We think we're positioned in a way that we've got all the iterations covered, and can act accordingly if we need to, but we think right now, the way it's turning out, we're the ones left standing."